Monday 2 January 2017

Finding Philosophy in Unexpected places

Day 34 (Tuesday 3rd January 2017)

34% of women business owners say they have experienced gender discrimination in the
workplace. This was felt particularly in sectors that are traditionally male dominated -
such as construction, where over half (54%) had experienced discrimination according to the
report 
‘Women in Enterprise: The Untapped Potential’ published on 21st April 2016.  Another
discouraging 34% figure relating to women is that 
34% of women with a health problem
or disability had experienced violence by a partner in their lifetime, compared to
19% of women without a health problem of disability according to the results
of an EU survey, 
published in March 2016. NB cartoon is by Clay Bennett

I suspect today is the first day back to work for many of you (me included) - I hope 2017 proves an exceptionally good year in every way, both at work in in your broader life. I look forward to sharing moments of it with you. The holidays may be over, but the blog series continues and we have some excellent posts yet to come, today's is one of them...

Written by Angela Mortimer, the trailblazing doyenne of the recruitment industry and founder of Angela Mortimer plc, which she established forty years ago with a secretarial recruitment business based in London (in 1976). Angela is an extraordinary entrepreneur and a highly successful business woman. She grew her group during a time when most women were expected to be in lowly administrative roles and when there were very few senior women working in recruitment. Over the decades she has inspired, mentored and opened career opportunities for hundreds of thousands of women (and men). 



I am fortunate in that, over the years, I have become friends with Angela - she is delightful company, with a swift wit and a sharp intellect. A good person to bounce ideas off, as she is commercial, pragmatic, emotionally intelligent and fun. She writes excellent, entertaining blogs on LinkedIn and can be found on Twitter (her handle is @AngelaMortimer3). She has many interests outside work that provide some of the "heights" of her year (as you can tell from her below post); in addition to golf, she loves tennis, fine food and wine, skiing and being a great grandma. 

Being told she needed to improve at golf could have counted as a "hollow", but Angela has taken "heart" and gained much from the lesson.


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Finding Philosophy in Unexpected places

So there I was, hounding my way through last years Christmas card list to see who still qualified and adding new qualifiers.  Yesterday had been an mêlée of shopping, anxiety attached to each purchase – would they like it?  Then the food for the festivities, and feeling sick at the thought of a poor outcome from the recipes researched on Google.  When will the agony of possible anticipated failure end?  At least that is one certainty – not before 28th December.



To relive my tension, I visited my golf coach, Lucinda, to cash in springtime Birthday Treat from my girlfriends. My newly purchased driver was sending the ball for many yards but a puzzling 30 degrees wide of target.  She videoed my swing and came out with a diagnostic which was to prove apocryphal.



“You’ve got a weak grip,” she said.  She handed me a rubber mould that corrected my finger and thumb positions.  “That’s the correct grip and you've got to practice.  You’ve got to practice your grip”.

And that was it - as simple as that, my ah-ha moment.  My golf pro is unexpectedly a philosopher too.  What I learned at my golf lesson I must apply to the rest of my life and certainly my build up to Christmas.  I’ve got to get a grip, correct my grip and practice my grip, in preparation for the festive season. 

It’s the only way to enjoy and celebrate the good things, family and friends we are fortunate to have – and stop flipping worrying about the unimportant.

As this is being published early in 2017 - Happy New Year Everyone


High Five!
(Gecko foot has tiny hairs that exploit electrostatic attractive forces, called
van der Waals forces, for temporary adhesion. Scientists are proposing
using a similar approach to trap space debris.)

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